1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to a method and system for making a targeted offer to an audience, specifically for identifying ideal consumers for marketing purposes through the generation of interaction associations that are based upon behavioral information and intent of a first plurality of entities, and predicting behavior and intent of a second plurality of entities based upon the interaction associations.
2. Description of the Related Art
Oftentimes, merchants offer products and services to customers based on the customer's immediate expressed need. For example, a customer needs a car and a car dealer offers to sell the customer a car. The customer now has a car that needs to be insured and begins to look for an insurance provider. An insurance provider becomes aware of the customer's need when the customer calls and offers the customer automobile insurance. However, if the merchant is unaware of the customer's specific need and the customer does not express the need directly to the merchant, the merchant may miss an opportunity to provide the customer with products or services that the merchant is prepared to provide. Further, the customer may miss an opportunity to be offered products and services that the customer is not yet aware that he or she needs, but that the merchant anticipates the customer will need based on the merchant's understanding of customers it has encountered under similar circumstances.
It may be possible to predict the products or services a customer will be willing to purchase based on the customer's personal circumstances. A merchant can use its experience in offering products or services to customers with similar personal circumstances to predict the products or services that other customers may be interested in purchasing. Accordingly, a system that could analyze a customer's personal circumstances would allow a merchant to predict the products or services that may be desirable to the customer and allow a merchant to offer the products or services to the customer as the customer is recognizing his or her own need. This can help a merchant to expand its relationship with existing customers by timely offering new products or services to customers at the time the customer is most likely to be interested in purchasing the new products or services.
Additionally, there are times that a specific merchant has access to information about a customer, based on the merchant's prior dealings with the customer, regarding a customer's personal circumstances that are not readily available to other merchants that have a business relationship with the first merchant. For instance, a financial institution may have access to certain customer data that indicates a spending behavior that is not apparent to one of the financial institution's retail partners. Because the retail partner is not aware of the customer's personal circumstances, it is not able to tailor its offer of products or services to suit the customer's present or imminent need and the customer may receive offers that are not relevant to her circumstances and miss the opportunity to purchase products or services that are more relevant.
Recent years have seen a vast expansion of the use of social networks to connect individuals, access information and communicate with groups of people that share similar backgrounds, interests or characteristics. The rise of social networks presents an opportunity for merchants to both identify information about their customers and to communicate offers for products and services to customers based on available information regarding the customer's needs.
Therefore, a need exists for a system that can analyze a customer's personal circumstances, including data from a customer's social network, and identify customer activities and circumstances that may represent an opportunity for a merchant to offer products or services to the customer that are specifically tailored to the customer's upcoming need or desire and communicate the offers to the customer.